Equal before law – Letters to Badriya Greetings Badrya, The officials at the Ministry of Interior have to think about what you wrote in the last para about “implementing laws in a decent way that suits our beautiful Islamic Sharia laws and the manners of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).” I just want to add one small thing: During Salaah, everyone, whether poor or rich, Kuwaiti or expat stand in one line, shoulder to shoulder. When everyone is same in front of Allah, then why Constitution is not equally applicable to all? Send home illegal residents, but at the same time, punish those individuals who were responsible for trading visas. Yesterday, one of my best friends went on a vacation. I could not go to the airport to drop him, as there are reports that police was catching individuals saying that you are driving illegal taxis. Nowadays we cannot go out with a friend also. I would like to suggest that the MOI should issue another card, declaring that a person’s salary is KD400 or more (similar to family visa cap), so that these people can go out with their friends without fear. Long live Kuwait. Regards, Mohammed The root cause Dear Madam, I read your article ‘Not worth the drama scene’. Thank you so much and so kind of you for your courageous voice and sensible concern towards unfortunate people. Kindly consider these solutions and raise them vociferously so that Kuwaiti authorities will address the root causes, instead of leaving the expat community horrified by creating ‘as if a war situation.’ 1) A reasonable time period, a kind of grace period, should be immediately granted to all those found in violation of residency visas. All the countries’ embassies should be made as a facilitation centers so that the visa breakers can get a chance to correct their visa status. And if they fail, they should leave the country gracefully. 2) Similarly a grace period should be declared for Driving License Holders, who want to cancel/surrender their driving licenses. (After the grace period, Kuwaiti authorities can revoke the driving licenses with certain attributes. (eg There are so many people who received the driving license in first attempt during a driving test. This is a clear case of Wasta driving licenses. So as an initial step, revoking the visas of those who passed the driving test in their first attempt will force the Wasta seekers to go through that channel twice.) 3) Cancellation of sponsorship system: The root cause of Labour Law violations in Kuwait is because of the ‘Sponsorship System’. Poor people who came to Kuwait by spending their life time’s savings and taking loans at high interest rates or seeking debts from their home countries are falling prey to the sponsorship system in Kuwait and becoming trapped. They are left in a state of helplessness. They are living a pathetic life. It is high time to cancel the sponsorship system and come up with new Labour/Visa laws as per human rights standards and from a humanitarian angle. Instead of unleashing the state’s fury against the visa violators, this is a solution to remove the root cause. 4) Corruption in authorities is another and the biggest root cause of many problems in Kuwait. Taking the e-governance route and adopting transparency measures will address so many problems. 5) Deporting expats for traffic violations happens only in Kuwait. Kuwait has entered history by doing this inhuman thing. Recording a traffic violation efficiently and imposing penalties, making those pay more who repeat such violations, will streamline the situation. But here, deporting the traffic violator and his family (Kuwait authorities say ‘repeated violators’) is the ground reality. 6) Kuwait has to note that horrifying the expat community will eventually bring negative publicity to Kuwait from all perspectives. The expats including professionals might leave and relations with other nations will deteriorate, while we will be labelled with the epithet of being human rights. The expat community is the backbone and a source of strength for Kuwait. 7) Kuwait has a lot of intellectuals. If they think with little creativity, there are hundreds of solutions available. They can be very sensible and makes Kuwait a safe, civilized and disciplined country of law abiding people.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:22:15 +0000
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